Fasten Your Seat Belts and Eat Your Fucking Nuts

by Joe Thomas

  Correct me if I am wrong but I’m not aware that it is written in any flight attendant manual—or job description—that our duties included being the pilot’s bitch. There are flight attendants that strive for this position, or any position a pilot can get them in, but not this flight attendant. Shorty was unaware of that so here we were, playing out these roles like a Broadway show, one that I’d have never auditioned for if I had read the script. I fantasized about dousing him with pepper spray and pushing him through the tiny crack between the airplane and the jet bridge.

  “I don’t have any brewed. We’re about to board.” I responded while pulling the trash bag out from the galley bin.

  “Brew some.“ He lifted his suitcase and placed it into the flight deck behind the captain’s chair, “Is that difficult?”

  I couldn’t concentrate on anything but watching him struggle with his luggage. How was he even able to lift his bag? It was gigantic compared to him. Where did this fucker commute from, Lilliput? I could only assume he wore the same clothes day after day and packed feathers in his luggage so he could easily lift the large bag without asking for assistance.

  “No, sir. Black coffee coming right up.” I hit the brew button on the coffee pot. I wanted to ask him if he wanted that served in a thimble but the idea of spending another night in Raleigh was out of the question.

  Another thing about Shorty, he always had to have the last word. Yelling up from the flight deck he added, “If any of these asshole passengers give you a hard time let me know and I will take care of it.”

  Take care of it? That made me swallow my loud laugh and burp it right back up. I am perfectly capable of handling my own passenger confrontations. This mega dick pilot struggled reaching the overhead bin without stepping on a passenger seat. How would he help me? Kick them in the ankle, climb up their leg, and bitch slap them with his baby hand?

  It’s hard not cornering these types of pilots in the flight deck and reminding them, politely and professionally, of course, that anyone can do their job. They are pilots flying people around on vacation and to business meetings. They haven’t saved the world. Call me when you find the cure for cancer.

  With that said, not all pilots are dicks. I have had the pleasure of working with some of the kindest and most polite pilots at my airline. Pilots who treat their flight attendants like human beings, not just employees who they order around to get them cups of coffee and Diet Cokes with only one cube of ice in the cup. That's a true story. It didn’t happen to me, but a fellow flight attendant confessed that a pilot asked her once for a cup with only one cube of ice. One cube of ice? Bitch, please. Get your fat ass up and get that shit yourself. That’s totally the kind of shit a dick pilot does. If you ever encounter a dick pilot who’s acting nice, it’s probably because he just got divorced and his wife was awarded nothing.

  I can always tell when I'm working with a nice pilot because they have excellent communications skills during the initial briefing. Let's face it, most pilots suck when it comes to communication which is probably the reason so many of their marriages end in divorce. That and the fact they don't know how to keep their zippers shut. I stand corrected, they know how to keep their zipper shut—they just don't want to. Flying with a pilot with great communication skills is like spotting a polar bear in a bank of snow; you know they’re out there but they are so damn hard to find. The nice pilots, not the dick pilots, tend to go above and beyond to make their flight attendants feel special. Not just the flight attendants with the short skirts and big tits but even the male flight attendants, gay and straight.

  Nice pilots take our bags down from the overhead bin. They help clean up the airplane between quick turns. They wait for us so we can all walk to the hotel van together. They offer to do a coffee run when we can’t get off the airplane. Buying us a cup of coffee may be the nicest thing a pilot can do for their flight attendants. When this happens, I am so grateful that I have to fight off the urge to drop to my knees and offer up my blow job services. I feel that’s the least I can do. It’s my duty as the flight attendant to blow a pilot for a cup of coffee. Right? I've done it for far less so why not for a caffeine boost. As thrilling as that sounds, I don't believe the passengers in the front row want that type of show. Well, unless I am working a flight to San Francisco during gay pride. In that case, they’d give me a standing ovation after hot towel service. Nice pilots are exactly that: they are nice. They purchase donuts on a transcon flight, write in compliment letters to the airline on your behalf, and buy the crew brisket sandwiches from The Salt Lick in Austin, Texas.

  A few years ago I had the pleasure of working with my friend Lyla. It was an easy trip with a long layover in Dallas, Texas. The pilots who flew us from Los Angeles to Dallas were continuing on to Orlando so we said our goodbyes as we walked off the airplane and found our way to the hotel van. We climbed into the hotel van and found ourselves greeted by two other airline pilots on their way to the hotel. One was older and one was hot. They noticed we were traveling without pilots and invited us out for drinks. We said ‘yes’ and immediately checked online to see if their airline was currently hiring flight attendants. They weren’t.

  After changing out of our uniforms into something more suitable for an afternoon of layover drinking, we all met downstairs in the hotel lobby and walked a few blocks to a local bar. The drinks were flying at us like dicks at a gay college frat party. My kind of party. Lyla with her long flowing brunette hair, white T-shirt, and large perky tits leaned over and whispered to me, "I think he wants to hook up with me."

  “Which one?”

  “The old one.”

  I had picked up on that too, especially when he tried showing her his collection of personal dick pictures on his iPhone. There was no way she was going to fuck him. That disappointed me. I was having so much fun and didn't want the free drinks to stop. For all the money he was spending on us, someone had to give it up. I thought about throwing myself into the equation but I was already too many glasses of wine in to stay awake for Captain Clyde— so oral was out of the question. So was anal. "Most likely," I said ordering another glass of Pinot Grigio, “just close your eyes and take one for the team."

  "Joe! You are crazy," she said sipping on her third vodka and seltzer.

  Lyla did not fuck him. I guess that was a smart decision. Even though she avoided all his advances he still got us wasted and paid the expensive tab. All that on a Wednesday night.

  Situations with nice pilots, like the one I just shared, are rare. I shared that story so I don’t come off as some pilotphobe flight attendant. I really don’t hate pilots. In fact, I find most of them hot. I actually get along better with pilots than I do flight attendants. It’s the dick pilots that I can’t stand. Unfortunately, my interactions with these pilots tends to be over the top. I have dealt with an alarming number of dick pilots during my career as a flight attendant but none have left me wanting to commit murder like Jimbo Saks.

  Captain Saks (Jimbo from this moment on) was the ultimate dick pilot. In fact, he was what I refer to as an undercover dick pilot. Mega dick pilots want you to know right off the bat that they are small, in charge, and don’t like anyone taller than them, which comes out to roughly 92.8% of the population (or something like that). Heartbreaking, right? Almost makes me feel bad for those shrimps. Undercover dick pilots are the complete opposite. They play you like a banjo and pluck at your strings catching you off guard with their beautiful music. They are sneaky bastards with no soul. An undercover dick pilot hides his true feelings, judgements, and racist beliefs deep inside his Southern beer belly until the most opportunistic time. Their truth surfaces the moment you let down your guard and think they are cool. Suddenly, without warning and with the right amount of alcohol, they unleash the gates of hell on you proving that people living in the deep South should really be segregated from the rest of the United States.

  I enjoy the flexibility of my job. Having the ability to bid for trips with layovers in different cit
ies keeps me entertained. In one given month I can party with friends in Ft. Lauderdale, party with friends in Austin, and party with friends in Boston. As you can see, I like to party and I have many friends. On some trips it’s a nonstop party from the moment we arrive at the hotel until bedtime. Some months our schedules are fabulous, and some months they are so terrible I contemplate tossing myself down a flight of stairs just to break a limb. It all depends. I enjoy trips with long layovers, in fun cities, and being assigned to work with flight attendants I get along with.

  We might also find ourselves being awarded trips on certain airplanes we may—or may not—enjoy flying around the country on. The airline that I work for has four different airplane types. I usually don’t care which airplane I work on because at the end of the day I am still doing the same shit; flying around at 37,000 feet, handing out sodas, and having my ass pinched by hot older men. That last part hasn’t happened yet but I have high hopes it will. Honestly, I have no preference of which airplane I work, but if I had to choose I’d work the larger airplane. The main reason being the number of flights we have to work on the smaller airplane in a single day. On those airplanes we can work anywhere between two to four flights per day, and the airline expects us to be as happy and friendly on the fourth flight as we were on the first flight. Not going to happen. I don’t care what anyone at the airline says, after working four flights in one day there’s no flight attendant who will act chipper and friendly. That’s an impossible assumption.

  The Baby Jet, as most of us refer to it at my airline, has 100 seats and is the smallest airplane in our fleet. Because of the seat configuration the FAA (do I really have to explain who they are?) requires the airline to assign two flight attendants to work the airplane. When we’re awarded trips on the Baby Jet we stay with the pilots for the entire length of the trip. That’s completely different than our larger airplanes, where we stay with the same flight attendant crew for the entire trip but change out pilots like we change out liquor carts on a Las Vegas flight-each leg and often. Being awarded one of these trips can be fun if you are working with pleasant and friendly people. If you are stuck with asshole pilots, or a bitch flight attendant, then these trips can be soulsucking experiences that you wouldn’t wish on a passenger traveling with four carry on bags.

  When our monthly bid was published I was pleased to see a New Orleans layover on my schedule. The heat and humidity usually keeps me out of New Orleans during the summer but I hadn’t visited The Big Easy in months. I decided to keep the trip. New Orleans layovers are fun and you’ll know why if you’ve ever visited the city. Pairings at my airline range from one day to five day trips and this pairing was a quick two day trip with a 16 hour layover. We were scheduled to land at 11:30 p.m. and depart the following day at 5 p.m. This was just enough time to drink, eat, sleep, eat, shower, sleep, shave, get coffee, and head back to the airport. My kind of layover.

  Most of the time I work with flight attendants I do not know. There are thousands of us so it’s feasible most often I will work with someone I have never met before. That works out great as long as they do their jobs correctly. For this trip, the flight attendant Gods were watching over me. The initial person assigned to work with me dropped the trip which allowed my friend Abbie Seltzer to pick it up. The second she knew we were flying together she texted me threatening my life if I called in sick. I informed her I had no plans on dropping the New Orleans layover and I was thrilled she was on it. With her wind blown blond curls, tall stature, and dark rimmed glasses, Abbie was fantastic. Electric. She lite up the entire airplane cabin on a red-eye flight. Sure, she slammed the flight deck door louder than any other flight attendant I’d ever worked with, but if you could get past that—like I had—then working with her was a reward. I loved every minute of it.

  The moment we reported in the crew lounge we started planning our evening.

  “What do you want to do tonight? I was thinking about this jazz piano bar?” Abbie asked while repacking her tote bag with her flight attendant manual.

  A jazz piano bar was not my scene but I went along with it, “Sure. Let’s see what happens. Can we do shots there?”

  She laughed. “Oh Joe. This is going to be so much fun.”

  This was not the first time I had worked with Abbie. A few months prior we had managed through a day from hell. A one day pairing that was originally scheduled to last only eight hours but ended up continuing on for 16 hours. By the time the airplane landed in Cleveland we were physically exhausted and beaten down by passengers. It was past midnight and although we were scheduled to report off several hours prior, we walked off the airplane laughing like we had just been paid to do nothing but drink wine and eat copious amounts of cheese. Two things I love to do more than anything else, I might add.

  Our captain was shocked, “I can’t believe it. I’ve never seen flight attendants so happy after a fucked up day like this.”

  “What are you gonna do? It is what it is.” I responded. Abbie agreed and we continued laughing while walking through the airport.

  Then the laughter stopped for a brief second. She added, “I missed the last fucking bus and now I have to sleep in the crew lounge.” We paused for another second and then busted out laughing again. I can only imagine we were truly fatigued and didn’t know what we were saying. Sleeping in the crew lounge was nothing to joke or laugh about. It didn’t matter though because Abbie was the kind of person you wanted to work with on a shitty day. She spoiled you with her heart of gold and laugh so contagious you’d need a vaccine to prevent from catching the giggles when she erupted into laughter. If her career as a flight attendant fails to work out she can always aspire to be a divorce arbitrator, bringing her viral laugh to the most miserable divorces.

  The day of our New Orleans trip we walked through the airport laughing, joking, and smiling at every individual we passed. If passengers waiting for their flights didn’t know better, they’d think we were high on brownies sent from Amsterdam. That wasn’t a far stretch for Miss Abbie Seltzer. I doubt she was actually high, but I have never met anyone so happy. I think that if we crashed into the sea and they found her strapped to the jumpseat she’d be grinning from ear to ear. When they found me they’d see a vodka mini stuffed in my mouth. After a quick stop for coffee we found our way to gate 15 and introduced ourselves to Jimbo and First Officer Kirby Kline.

  Kirby was friendly, young, handsome, and easy to talk to. I informed Abbie that he’d hang out with us in New Orleans even if he didn’t want to. It wasn’t an option. Jimbo was a different story. He was talkative but left me with a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I had just finished doing shots of habanero sauce in the desert; a feeling that a gallon of water couldn’t cure. I immediately noticed his speech was slow and drawn out. More like an illiterate who failed the second grade twice or a guy who suffered a stroke and never fully recovered. I am no expert on genealogy, but I’d put my money on the fact that he was conceived by two first cousins fucking in the back of a beat up pickup truck. Like I said, I am no expert, but I do believe he was born in Kentucky, and don’t quote me on this, but I do think inbreeding is that state’s past time.

  After we departed, and right before service started, I walked to the front of the airplane to talk it over with Abbie. Did she feel the same way about Jimbo? I had to find out. “I don’t think I like this Jimbo character,” I whispered to her while she set up her galley.

  “I know. He seems weird.” She responded pulling napkins and cups from the service bin.

  I smiled. “I agree.”

  “But he already asked me what we were doing tonight so I invited him out,” she replied taking a swig out of the clear plastic bottle she carried with her everywhere. The liquid inside was suspicious. It was some odd concoction that looked like day old urine. I doubt it was urine but the cloudy amber looking substance made me uncomfortable. I had no idea what was in that water bottle and I didn’t care to ask.

  “I can’t believe you invited
him out.” I curled up my right lip leaning against the galley wall to block the nosy passengers in row from listening. They are always eavesdropping. “Why did you do that?”

  She got flustered, “I don’t know. I can tell him no if you want?”

  And make me look like the asshole? I had to think about it for a moment. “No. He’s probably not bad. I’m just being a bitch and my coffee hasn’t kicked in.” I only half believed that, “I just hope he looks better in normal clothes than that uniform. He’s a fat mess.”

  She pulled her apron over her head,, “I’m sure he’ll be fine. He doesn’t seem that bad.”

  Our day consisted of three flights: Cleveland to Nashville, Nashville to Jacksonville, and then finally Jacksonville to New Orleans. We landed 30 minutes early which in the airline industry means free money.[1] Landing 30 minutes equates to having a drink in your hand that much sooner. It’s really all I think about when I know fun will be awaiting me once I get out of my uniform and change into something more relaxing. We said goodbye to the last passenger and then the four of us hightailed it out of the airport to the hotel van waiting for us.

  The moment we stepped outside into the muggy Louisiana air, Jimbo stopped at the curb, dug deep into his pocket, and pulled out a pack of Marlboro reds. “Hey ya’ll. I gotta have a smoke.”

  That motherfucker. The last thing he needed to do was smoke a cigarette, especially when his belly hadn’t caught up to the rest of his body. I looked back and it was still rolling by baggage claim. He was that fat. I was sure that at some point in his life he got caught inside the revolving door at one of our layover hotels. Probably the reason we were kicked out of the Sheraton in downtown Philadelphia. I rolled my eyes as he stood to the side of the van and lit up his cigarette. If he had a heart attack at that exact moment I would tell the driver there was a $20 tip in it for him if he drove like Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious. Kirby, Abbie, and I placed our bags at the back door of the van for the driver and then the three of us climbed into the van waiting for Jimbo. He wasn’t phased that we were waiting for him. I looked out the window while he puffed on his cigarette like a flapper from the 1920’s. A fat flapper. That pissed me off.